Winter Ball VI

"You would have broken their arms and smashed them through the table."

"I woulda gone easy on them!... at first… reel them in with a double or nothing at the end…" the sniper responded in defense. Selene looked up at the commander behind them, waiting for him to chastise them.

"Ma'am, it was a party," the medium told her.

"You don't try and harm the guests with random fun. Besides… should have played poker instead…"

"You play, ma'am?" Turnie asked.

"I was a bit of a cardshark in college, helped pay for courses. People stopped wanting me in games after word got out, though."

"What'd you do after?" Turnie asked.

"Did people's homework." Bronze Team all shared a look between them. "What? Skills to pay the bills, guys."

"Hey, ma'am, about the… you know…" Deacon started to question her about the meeting before the ball. "They had their kangaroos loose in the top paddock, eh?"

"Intellectual capability is not a required factor to be rich or famous," she responded.

"I heard you sent them to the vats," Turnie suddenly said, with Selene rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, we'll see if we get anything out of their pathetic biomass."

"Did it feel good?" the medic questioned.

"Yup. I'd rather not talk too much more about it, my blood pressure is rising just remembering the event." The team put up their hands in surrender, deciding to change the subject. Selene was a still a little hotblooded right now after what happened, trying to cool down the entire time she was in the throne room.

"Do you feel this ball was a waste of time?" Orlo questioned.

The empress shook her head quietly. "No, it gave those who are loyal even more incentive to stay as such, the ex-nobles who are onboard with everything got a chance to see the face of the woman running things, and I got to see them firsthand and not think they're just mouthbreathers. Here's hoping they don't fuck the options I've given them." She continued on towards an exit to the palace, heading straight for a waiting helibot taking her back to her flagship. Eve was already put in bed just after 9, so she didn't have to worry about tucking the princess in. Dahlia was going to stay with her the whole night.

Once she arrived, her entire cabinet was waiting in the conference room. "We're happy you have the time to speak after all of that, ma'am," Will told her.

"I have a feeling I won't be going to bed until early morning. Did all of you get a chance to relax?" she asked.

"I have realized I do not like the taste of champaign," Felix informed her.

"You're a red wine kind of mech, are you?" Gala chuckled out.

"How'd you know? The vineyards that some farmers have been able to get up and running have been able to produce some decent Cabernet Sauvignon. I'm impressed they have the ability to age the bottles so quickly, with a magician coming around once a week to assist in the process," the secretary of agriculture replied. "Strangely, that spell doesn't work on complex beings like humans, probably for safety reasons or lack of understanding biology. I wonder where it was created."

Selene sat down and opened the canister, pouring out a cup of coffee and started to drink. "Ok, so, I'm here for some sort of interesting plan of action Grey and Nikola have concocted." Everyone was silent as they looked at her. "As you all are aware, most of our work has involved key things. Those were: one, to get the economy back up and running and we've done that; two, to get people incentivized to get an education. We're partially there, with them still working to keep everyone going. It's too early to determine how well we've done. Three is getting their infrastructure updated within boundaries of their current era. Frankly speaking, with them entering the Renaissance, they have the latest tech possible until the next phase without having to work for it just yet."

"Four would be cleaning out the crime that was latched in place everywhere," Will interrupted, pointing at her.

"Yes, that would be four. I know that look, Will. They're taken care of, the job was done."

"I'm just saying, there is a reason it was called the 'Red Room.' We have resurrection capability if you needed to take out your aggressions further."

"Look, that would have been for nothing if we did, in fact, resurrect them. Ok, maaaaayyyybe it would have been nice to air condition that smug, fat ass sitting nearby, but it's much better to just shove him in a vat and see him barely touch his goals in a simulation only to have it wrenched away in a reset. Besides… I'm pretty sure we just strained crap out of the gene pool now."

"We just worry about you, that's all ma'am," he responded.

"Thank you. Now, five was… er…"

"Agricultural enhancement with ranches becoming obsolete. Farms are easier to take care of with a wide array of vegetables growing pretty much everywhere, including the new varied trees introduced," Felix said, assisting the empress. "Bar a plague that festers right under our noses, which means the empire is already truly destroyed, food shouldn't be an issue for those paying for it."

"Which brings us to a minimum wage system, which has been balanced now. People can now live on basic pay per day and still manage to save for new amenities, pay taxes and, in general, not be afraid to lose their homes. Gradient taxes have closed the gap for the poor and the rich now, with a difference of thirty percent between their workers and themselves" the Secretary of Commerce, Akuchi, explained with a distinct Nigerian accent.

"Good, but we still have a lot to do, at least for ourselves. Most of what gets done is building and keeping things out. Both parts of that are in thanks to Juliet and Romeo over there," Gala said as she pointed to the two in charge of constructing just about everything. Their crews were strewn throughout the land, getting bases and cities to rise from the dirt, sometimes within a day for the smaller locations.

"Alright, what's this plan you've got, Grey? Nikola?" Selene asked as she sat back and tried to relax.

The director in charge of her intelligence system throughout the empire put up one finger in the air. "I just have one question before we explain. Have you gone to see Xaxara?"

"Nope. I was thinking of doing so, but that might have ended with me taking out my anger for no reason."

"Isn't she the embodiment of lust, sorcery, and corruption?" Dominic queried.

The empress gestured with a wave of her hand in the air. "Elesia, when I met her, wasn't exactly friendly, despite being the goddess of kindness, beauty, and nature after all. Besides, as has been shown in stories from both here and Earth, gods can be fickle creatures with different personalities. For all I know, she's jovial and takes jabs at people. I don't want to put a blade to her neck just because I'm pissed at some ex-nobility and a misunderstanding in how she speaks. She's still alive, right?"

"Barely. The chains keep her from accessing the flow of faith from her followers. Frankly, corruption might be a bit low in the area, so I'd think she'd normally be getting her energy from lust or magic users," Dominic reported as he put down a large coin he was carrying on the table. His visage was of a 1960s politician just come out of the military, sharing some similar suit designs to Will, only with a more muscled build.

"Wondering if I should break one of those…" Selene questioned herself as she scratched her chin.

"Not until you know for sure she isn't a threat. Once you go that route and she is hostile, we're coming down there to stop her right behind you" Will snapped his fingers and pointed at her. The empress put up her hands in submission. They were very protective of their creator. The artifact quality tier sword that was crafted had the capability to severe the existence of a god from their own celestial qualities, acting as if the deity was mortal. It was a defining characteristic of all artifact tier weapons, something that World Class Items didn't share. What the latter had over the artifact tier was a more diversified list of already thought up creations. Artifact tier had a total of 300 items designed that Selene knew of, given that players rarely found them. Celestial quality was just around the corner, only two ever found in Divine Apocalypse.

"Now, for the pet project we've thought up," Grey said as he looked over at Nikola, who nodded at him. "We believe we can speed up the process of education for the people here, and in so doing, speed up tech era transfer."

"What does this involve?" the dev asked, looking around for further enlightenment.

Nikola pulled out a bag and placed it on the table, opening it up and taking a syringe with a glowing blue gel inside. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is liquid experience, knowledge in an injectable form."

"How much is in there?" Will questioned.

"One experience point," Robert responded in place of his colleague. Everyone in the room blinked, thinking it was a joke.

"Wait, what?" Selene questioned for everyone. It looked as if there was enough in the tube to baste a turkey with.

"We know the amount inside is visually misleading. This is just the beginning of the project to determine if it was even possible. The design is off of a basic analysis of the orb our empress has, along with low-level integration of the 'cheese packs' in her inventory." He was referring to the booster packs that players could get created to speed the process up of leveling in Divine Apocalypse.

"You were able to figure out how the orb works? Can you duplicate it?" Selene asked quietly, furrowing her eyebrows.

"No ma'am, we haven't gotten that far. It's an unusual artifact. We're actually quite surprised no one tried to search for it, considering the object can do, well, all of this for you. Maybe no one else out there can make the same use of it as you can. Regardless, back to the topic at hand. If we refine the process of creating these, make them smaller, and with larger quantities of experience, maybe specialize them with certain types of knowledge, then all adults will have basic education, and we can get this ball rolling," Robert informed her.

"We're talking at least elementary school level here, at least at first," Grey commented.

"How would this work? What's the time frame?" Gala asked them.

"If we do this in sections, entire cities brought into clinics… three years for basic training due to the number of provinces. That doesn't include research time to improve the design," Nikola replied.

"So that seems to drop us back to square one. The standard curriculum schedule is still 12 years, with us streamlining that down to 10. That doesn't speed the process up very much with everything combined and only giving us elementary school degrees injected" the Secretary of Education, Minerva, stated as she added to the group. This was the first time she had entered a meeting with everyone else, focusing on getting schools set up and assisting the heads of academies to understand their responsibilities. Skuld worked closely with her on an almost daily basis. She looked very similar to a teacher, ponytail and glasses with a blouse and long skirt.

Selene sat there thinking for a moment.

That's better than most countries back on Earth, shaving 2 years of high school and putting it instead towards college.

"Ok, so… how do we fix that? I'm interested," the dev asked.

"Give us some time to refine the process. By our estimates, we can double the experience stored every week, with that time frame changing after three months into quarterly. Providing more scientists will not make this go faster; unfortunately, the experiments won't take less time with more hands," Nikola told them. "Afterwards, take each province, give them the serum, give them a chance to adapt."

"We should definitely restrict how that experience is used now that I think about it, the chances of wasting it on random information is too high," Robert told him quietly as he leaned in and wrote down on a tablet with an electronic pen, jotting notes for later. "Specialization seems required."

"I concur. Now, to expand on this, there is a technology that is brought up in stories since forever, either that or magic. Time dilation. Now, magic on the scale we're talking about would take an exorbitant amount of mana, which we can get from the generators, but positioning would be difficult, and planning out travel restrictions in the area would be… annoying, to say the least," Grey continued to explain.

"We'd use that on a province to get civilians back up and running after the injection? Won't that have a disconnect with the rest of the world?" Dominic asked them. "If they believe it's such and such date, and others they come into contact with outside the bubble say otherwise… all I'm saying is information would be disjointed between everyone suddenly, not to mention the aging of all present inside. Communication, now that it's become better with the postal service, apprentice wizards running messages… that's going to be a problem. Hell… birthdays missed, holidays… that's a mess waiting to happen."

"What if we provided a paid vacation per city or town?" Selene asked. They all looked at her.

"Care to expand on that, ma'am?" Will said.

The empress rubbed her forehead and looked at the ceiling of the conference room. "A trip of enlightenment, provided by the government. They get temporarily put to sleep, injected in specialized facilities, brought back to their homes after such and such time. They get to have a nice long dream – monitored, of course – they come back to their houses with no real lost time. Provide the age regression serum as well that Nikola and Robert want me to take, at a much lower strength."

"Those facilities are going to have contact issues with… oh, wait," Will said, then stopped midway. "Our communications aren't restricted by time fields."

"You nearly forgot about that?" Gala chuckled out.

"It's never come up before. With the magic immunity films in our construction and active defense systems installed, it's never even been a thought. Well then, I guess we should get to that tech to use it first."

"We're gonna do this with magic. I can't get to the tech yet to make this feasible with science." Her cabinet all looked around at each other, suddenly worried.

"Ma'am, is there a problem with the orb?" Will queried. None of them knew of the exponential model she figured out, that the actions produced was now less than what was needed for future tech tiers. Selene explained that the artifact had another two upgrades in it before it was drained and needed to be filled, with experience being a non-issue. The room went silent.

"So let me get this straight. Drones, androids, along with us… we're not producing enough actions to maintain a consistent excess output anymore?... We need to expand upwards quickly then, to balance that out," Dominic suddenly said, tapping a pointer finger on the table matter of factly.

"We're already getting four stations in orbit, the moonbase will be operational soon, the roids are producing now, the elevator comes online this very night and –" Akuchi started to say.

"Four? We need double, triple that. Send terraforming systems to the next planet, send transports with more of us to build up the solar system. We need space colonies, outposts, science facilities on the moons, push out there. We need subaquatic bases, floating cities on the oceans, as well as in the sky. Four is a paltry number, Akuchi. That's not going to cut it in the grand scheme of things," the Secretary of Defense told him, interrupting his colleague. Dominic looked at the empress and made a sound that was similar to clearing his throat. "I… apologize for that outburst, ma'am. Just some devotion to the task at hand. I hope everyone understands."

"No, you're right." The dev sipped more of her coffee and brought up a holographic image of multiple designs for cities, space colonies, and fortresses created by Juliet and Romeo. "Fact is, we've reached the edge of what we're going to gain on this continent. Could conquer the dwarves, or the minotaur, or the Seong Neow Republic, but frankly, that's a waste of time when we can just go somewhere else."

"It also means integrating all those people into our society. That's… a lot more work for little gain," Gala informed them. "Frankly speaking, grabbing anyone else outside would take more time to get them up to speed, clearing crime out, fixing things… obnoxious tedium."

"Far easier to just construct more of us and go up, turn millions into billions or trillions, let the organic population live in peace down here for the time being," Dominic commented.

"Weren't we going to hold off slowly incorporating new tech to the citizens? To allow them to build up their culture?" Felix asked around the room. They all looked at their creator.

"If there's one thing I've now been hearing and seeing, it's that they want to forget Artinia. Everyone wants to move forward into something new." Selene sighed and tapped her fingers on the table. "They want to absorb anything we give them. Orlo had a discussion with me about handing off hundreds of musical instruments and books of new art styles instead of just letting them figure it out. Fact is… they'll figure it out regardless of what is put in front of them, we're just cutting down the time it takes for them to get to play with a piano or a DJ board. They'll pick what they want and write sonatas or rap for anyone that will listen or buy their equivalent of a Van Gogh. Their creative sides will flourish more if we let them get their hands on it, provided we can make sure they understand what they're doing."

"Instill morals in all of them. Could have that as an injection," Akuchi said.

"I believe that wouldn't be against our policy, compared to the loyalty serum we could put in the water treatment," Nikola responded. The dev still didn't want that used. It would be no better than the mind control liquid in the barrels, making them no more than nobles who were still in charge. Free will still needed to be free, even if the government was trying to force better tools into their hands to express it.

"We use the floating cities," Selene told them. They all looked interested suddenly. "After the injections, give them a chance to prove they have what it takes to excel, for the betterment of their fellow man."

"Nobel prizes?" Robert asked.

"Exactly! Except we make it more common; those who prove themselves, they get to live on one of those cities, leagues above what they are used to. Instead of the Renaissance Era, they get high-end steampunk homes with all the accouterments, proof that they had what it takes."

Will nodded at that. "Would instill loyalty through action, show their conscience is working, their reputation would give them a ticket up or out onto the water… or under it. Would they eventually get a chance to go into space?" he asked.

"In time. That's still pretty far out there, just focus on getting that jump. That could… what, shave off a few eras, right?" the empress said, looking around for acknowledgment.

"Could work. Provided we get all adults with a high school education, incentivize college after… we'll have a lot of unemployed, at least temporarily while they find themselves," Felix said. "We'd cut out what, a few time periods they'd go through? That saves us a few decades."

"The only problem would be those who are still greedy and only pushing themselves to get up to the cities. We should have a test in place to catch those who rate highly on the dark triad score," Grey advised.

"Agreed. Also, anyone who is still highly racist or prejudice against others. Don't need that tainting the communities," Romeo replied. "Getting tired of having to set up outposts between forests to keep asshats from thinking they can still pick on the elves."

"I thought we blew those miserable idiots up?" Gala grumbled out as she leaned back and sighed.

Dominic flipped a datapad in front of him and swiped down a card game. The dev's creations could multi-task well beyond any organic creature could. "That would be that one village we cratered, and that isn't all of them. While hate crimes are illegal, some don't have the brain cells to acknowledge the law. It's surprisingly difficult to change their views, lost causes in many cases. Some abide, a good portion doesn't. That's what our penitentiaries are for, after all, to weed out those who won't let others live their own lives the same as them, who cause pain and suffering to the communities they are a part of."

"So we're in agreement? We can perform the experiments?" Nikola asked, with Grey looking at their creator.

"Yes, sure. We're a go for the cities too, combine this whole thing into one big rocket launch towards a new future," Selene replied. "Hell… I should probably take those tests for the dark triad. Somehow I get the feeling it's becoming easier to take those lives."

"No, you're not" Will told her. "Orlo would have picked up on something during your chats, advised you if he noticed certain traits that could cause you to become disconnected. We're all loyal to you obviously, but we'd warn you if we noticed psychopathic tendencies arising. The fact you're here, in this meeting, trying to figure out how to get everyone a brain boost, while still not forcing them to salute you ala Hitler, is a testament to that."

"If we do this right, there would be no reason to stay on the ground," Gala said.

"On the contrary, rip down the old towns and cities, build new ones similar to those sci-fi paintings some artists have created in the past, streamlined utopias that reach for the sky and still work in harmony with nature. Not that difficult to do once we aren't working with citizens stuck working with muskets and rapiers," Juliet said as she looked at Romeo. "Steampunk doesn't have to look rusted and mucky, it can be just as shiny and in touch with nature as anything else. We just have to design it right, incorporate regular technology in with a little extra science for streamlining."

"Better population control too. More advanced civilizations don't overpopulate as quickly compared to their neighbors, meaning less encroaching on the environment, less damage to the planet," Felix said.

"This isn't going to be used on the children, is it?" Minerva asked.

"Only adults. Ages 1 to roughly 22 will not be allowed to have the injection due to the development of the body and brain. If we intended to provide the injection to all, then far more research would be needed to make sure we do not create serial killers," Nikola explained. "That would cause a substantial extension to be tacked onto this endeavor. I doubt anyone would want that. Besides… I'm fairly certain this should be a one-time event, with the conventional education system in place taking over."

Silence filled the room, with all of them agreeing. "Ok, so we're done?" Selene asked. They all seemed to nod.

"One more thing, empress," Nikola said as he looked at Robert, who acknowledged his interruption. "We've mastered the Early Paleolithic Era in all advancements and research." The dev furrowed her eyebrows, confused.

"Uh… we're… I mean… what?"

The automaton scientist smirked and clasped his fingers together on the table. "Let me explain. The research stations you had in your inventory, you gave all of them to us. We've put them to good use, improving on old designs. Yes, that may sound useless, at least at first. You must understand, creating a stone dagger that can cut through steel is no small feat. It goes beyond that as well, though. Mastery of that era has provided roughly a five percent boost across all other eras we reach, along with certain effects."

"Wait, five percent… that might not be that large for some situations, but if it causes generators to pump out more power… that's a pretty huge boost in the long run. There's more?" the empress asked.

"Very much so. I sent all of the data involving stone research and its properties to Juliet, every study we initiated. It'll speed up digging tunnels by cutting the time in half, with some interesting designs in stonework for construction."

"It means if we wanted to, could make a fort or a house that could withstand a massive earthquake or a military assault," Juliet jumped in. "It also means new ways to get houses up on better-designed foundations, better placement of plumbing with less need to repair pipes from shifting, new mortar mixtures for bricks, an easier job for my crews or human utility workers."

"I'm sorry, and I know this is awesome, but… how long did this take to get one era maxed?" Selene chuckled out.

Robert almost looked embarrassed. "Ma'am, we're sorry, but there's only so fast those advancements go without some errors jumping into the mix if we push it further. I'm not gonna lie, we used time dilation magic on them already. They really do not like that. Whatever they do in your inventory, trying to enforce new rules on them outside of it tends to cause… bad things. We try to let them work through understanding new material while we focus on other projects. Less… property damage… to the ARC."

"Whoa, whoa, wait, are you saying they blow up if someone tinkers with them?" Will asked, raising his metal eyebrows in astonishment at the science advisor, turning his gaze to the empress.

"That's one way of putting it…" Nikola mumbled out.

"' Going critical' would be more apt," Robert commented. The footage was played in the middle of the table of one such event, locking down the room and encasing it while activating all defensive systems. The whole place rocked from the blast. Just one of the old research stations was like a hydrogen bomb going off of high yield. The same could probably be said of the magic desks Selene used to have to craft specialized inks for magical scrolls or incantation tomes. The security camera actually glitched from the energy warping out in the video.

Selene's eyes were wide. "Good to know. Let's not do that again without warning me first."

"We weren't expecting that to happen at all. There was no indication anything like that would have occurred," Nikola said. "All the same… we'll be a lot more careful with future experimentation on creations of yours in the future, I can promise this."

"Don't uh… don't go tearing holes in reality, ok?"

"We'll do our best to avoid that, empress. All the same, we've now diverted the stations to Middle Paleolithic Era. It'll take a month or two to finish, giving another five percent, but we do wonder what passive improvements it will give us."

The empress had previously thought her creations got passive boosts from her perks, but this was probably the reason behind those stations in the first place. The old research into the grass creating new lubricants for the automaton's joints, new nutrients to feed into other plants, organic pesticides that didn't harm the environment, she had forgotten about all of that after the empire became as large as it had.

The idea of the tech tiers was to give access to whatever needed to be created by the player in Divine Apocalypse, with Selene having everything in the tier each time she upgraded. The main thing she needed to remember was it gave the basic form of it, a boring low-quality piece of equipment that could be improved further. While initial steampunk railguns were powerful, lowering their energy consumption, rate of fire and range could quickly be done in a few research stations. Time was the restrictor for them, and would only increase with each tier. The Information Age, for example, might take years to completely maximize, even if they already had all available tech.

The dev checked on where she'd received time dilation technology, and it was well past Late Extrasolar Era, as well as only speeding up or slowing down time by one microsecond. This was where the research stations would shine, eventually completely outpacing magical spells entirely… unless there were some improvements at the writing desks, of course. "Well, continue on with letting those things do their job. Are we done?"

"I believe there is still need of a discussion for terraforming the next planet we've been sending probes and satellites to," Will said as he brought up another docket. "We could always leave that for another night." They all looked at each other as the empress sat back down.

"I'm gonna stay up anyways for the activation of the elevator. Might as well here this out," she said as the rest did the same. The meeting continued on into the remainder of the night, with Selene calmed down now that everything was falling into place.

Meanwhile

Yuri walked out onto the deck of the ship and looked out onto the open water. In the next two days, they'd be seeing land after two weeks of travel. She was eager to get the job done for the Supreme One, report back what they found. Entoma was sitting on the edge of the upper deck, eating one of her green biscuits and waggling her legs.

"We're almost there," Yuri said as she put her hands on the railing.

"Do you think Ainz-sama will allow me to have some leniency if I accidentally eat one of the locals? We aren't going to know what is intelligent there," Entoma asked.

"Do your best to avoid that if possible. If not, at least do it out of my sight. Perhaps it would be best to wait until we meet one of the other fleets coming behind us."

"Ah, that might be good. But if it's who we've been fighting, won't they just disappear? I hate it when that happens, I can't get a bite to know what they taste like." The arachnoid thought about the army that had soldiers who vaporized on death, possibly returning to their creator to the north. They still didn't know how that was possible, but one thing was for certain: Ainz, their great and all-knowing master, he had far more answers for what was happening than they did. There was a reason for every action he took, and they would loyally follow every order he gave them to the letter.

"Contain your hunger to the food on the ship, sister. If we do well here, this mission will be over before you know it, and we'll back in the glorious Sorcerous Kingdom once again," Yuri replied.

"Very well. What if the locals attack us? I know we'll do our best to keep hidden, but if that eventuality does come to fruition, what do we do?"

"Defend ourselves as expected. If that happens, I do not see an issue with… indulging."

"Ok! I almost want that to occur, but I know Ainz-sama would be unhappy if I did it on purpose." Entoma looked up at the night sky, watching the stars and glowing moon. It was cold outside, with her moving very slowly around the ship. She wasn't enjoying the temperature, but her Dullahan sister was undeterred by the weather.

What she didn't notice was the drone flying high above, watching them and relaying its footage along with a spy satellite and stealth submarine underwater. In the far distance was the second fleet, very much a day behind them and not following the same trajectory, in hopes of finding a new landing point on the new land. One thing was for sure, things were about to get interesting with the next few weeks once the northern army arrived. Yuri only hoped they could find something on this continent that would interest the Supreme One.

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(Transferer)

hey ther i sadly have to inform you the the next chapter is going to be the last one.

if your have bean reading this that mean you like it so im asking if you have some fic that involf the MC creating a mechanickle army and that's it thaks for reading

next chapter in 3 hours if ther's no internet problem